I'm not a hockey hater, I just don't get the singular one-mindedness that obsesses people about this sport. I suppose it's similar to football or Nascar in the U.S. or perhaps soccer/football in the rest of the world, but I still don't get it.
I enjoy attending a higher level game, fast skating where you can hear the skate blades cutting through the ice, some great displays of hand-eye coordination, the electricity in the arena in a close game etc…It's good, I even grew up wanting to play (however in an era where girls were not really accepted in the hockey arena). Spent many a Friday night at the local rink watching/socializing while a game was going on so I understand the many sides of the game.
I like watching little kids playing organized hockey, skating in one big ball chasing the puck, tripping over one another and their own feet. Even the local street hockey games are fun to watch. Team building, good exercise, fair play and so on are all in there and the great aspects of the game. There are so many good things to this sport, but honestly some people need to get a grip on things.
We can start with the NHL lockout, it's now supposedly over, and my reaction is who cares? Millionaires fighting with millionaires about who gets paid what. It's about as riveting as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs fighting over computers. How does the general population relate, we're figuring out how to pay for groceries or if we can afford to go on vacation and they're talking numbers that the majority of us will never see.
And now after months of arguing they hope that the fans will come back? Really, I hope they lose some teams because of it. There are markets in the US that struggled for a fan base as is, I would hope that the ones that did actually go to games say "Screw you, I pay good money to go see you play as a source of entertainment and you can't even bother to show up for work." Of course this is a drop in the bucket, there are all the people who lost peripheral jobs because these guys couldn't get their crap together.
So enough about the pros, lets talk about the minor leagues. Not about the kids who love the game and go out there to have fun, or the Tuesday night rec league adults who go out and shoot the puck around and then go and have a few beers. No, we need to talk about the hockey parents/coaches/players who have the mindset that they or their kid is going to play in the pros. To them I say, "don't bet on it." I could probably look up the actual percentage of players that make it to the pros, or even semi pro level, and I would say your odds are better in winning your local dream home hospital lottery. Get over it people, yes, your kid may be good, but there are a whole lot of reasons that your kid is not going to be the next Crosby or Ovechkin. Let them play the game for the love of it, not because you picture yourself handing out his/her hockey card at the office.
Next, to the players out there who give the referees no credit for the work they do, I say lay off. Yes, I will say this is near and dear to my heart as Big C is an upper level referee, but I had this opinion long before he ever entered the picture. The refs are there to do a job and that is to make sure the game is played fairly. (I won't speak for those of you playing rec league hockey when your game is being officiated by Joe Schmo who just played in the game before you) An accredited referee is there on a nearly volunteer basis to make sure your kid is safe and the game gets played with some sense of fairness and decorum. Yes there are bad referees, but there are also bad players and bad games and we can't lump them all in to one. They get paid yes, but factor in travel, skates, equipment, helmets etc… and over the course of a season, might work out to a minimum wage part time job for your average referee.
I've seen referees spit at, hit, speared, sworn at, jumped after games and so on. Really people? Is this that important. Is your kids peewee game so vital that you need to scream at the referee from the stands because they called a penalty with 1 minute left in the game? Give your head a shake, it's a game, get over yourselves. And to the players out there, just suck it up and take the penalty, maybe it was and maybe it wasn't but honestly if it was something minor, it's 2 minutes in your life to sit out. (if you get 5 minutes for something, then you already know you probably shouldn't have done what you did). Hitting the referee, or calling them names or whatever isn't going to get you anywhere in the game or in life, just think about it.
Hockey is such a hot topic in our country, and I just don't know why. There are so many other great things out there in the world to talk about and do, why must our nation devote so much time and energy to this singular thing? Maybe years of cold and snowy winters did it to us and now that there is global warming and less extremes, we're coming to our senses?
We watch the local sports channel every morning at our house. Yes, I watch it too, from an early age, I enjoy all things sporting and am perfectly happy to catch up on the days scores and highlights. However, nothing pisses me off more than 3/4 of the show being taken up with hockey and hockey talk and speculation etc… There are other things going on in the world. Yes, you can give me the line about, "well that is what people want to see". Yes, of course it's what we want to see, because you don't show any other options, so we don't know that there is skiing, snowboarding, ringette, curling, lacrosse, bobsled, luge…I can't think of any more winter sports right now, but you get the picture. Maybe if kids saw something on TV or in the media other than hockey, they might be inclined to try it…just saying.
Anywho, that is my rant, it's a good game, but we really have to broaden our horizons as a nation and realize that breaking news is not the firing of a coach or manager of one of our hockey teams. It's reporting and saturation in our culture is too much of a good thing
Til next time…keep your stick on the ice :-)
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